What I've entitled this blog post isn't terribly inventive or altogether accurate, but I'm thinking of this as something akin to Outside Reading: encouraging an engagement with current events by fostering a discussion. I'd like to begin this conversation within our group having to do with current events and a number of ideas that come up in our class. A good entry point into this conversation might be the recent debate around safe space vs. a free press, specifically as came up in the protests at the University of Missouri:http://www.onthemedia.org/story/distrusting-media-missouri/

This idea of the media -- its purpose, bias, and perspectives; our perspectives or mistrust of it; the desire to control the narrative; how reporters sometimes benefit subjects but sometimes also use subjects to serve ulterior motives -- arose a little bit in our recent in-class conversations about recording people without their permission and why/when that is illegal, as well as learning something unflattering about the person you are writing a profile about.

This also involves ideas such as race, blacklivesmatter, the news, journalism, freedom of the press, safe space, and college life; all of that should be something we can weigh in on as part of the course.

First, what clarifying questions do you have? What is mentioned here that you need a little explanation or context for?Second, what research have you done in this area? What information can you bring to this discussion? What would be useful for us to consider when looking at the events at the University of Missouri?

Potentially, students from different classes will be responding, so you will need to give some context to your responses in that the three classes are at differnet places in their readings and discussions.

(Initially, I asked you to respond over the Homework-Free Weekend as an actual homework assignment, but I'm re-thinking that. If you want to respond now, you can. As a homework assignment, a comment to this post will be due by the Thursday after Thanksgiving Break.)

Riva Gold from the Atlantic reports on a lot of interesting things going on today regarding the media, and its diminishing power to represent. She explains that news organizations don’t actually attempt to create diversity in a meaningful way, and as a result lose “their ability to empower, represent, and...even to report on minority populations.”

http://fair.org/extra-online-articles/reparations-and-the-media/

Jacqueline Bacon from Fair explains that often media debates are rigged to make the opponent of potential policies such as reparations to African Americans look more logical. She says in the end, that the media slants coverage against racial activists.

The European Research Centre on Migrant and Ethnic Relations wrote an overview linked above. The overview quotes O’Connell from 1997 who found that “key articles...create a foundation for racism and maintain racist discourse in the media and the general public.”

In terms of the media portrayal of crime, Shanto Iyengar of Stanford and Franklin Gilliam of the University of California Los Angeles explains that media is complicit in fostering a “crime script” that encourages blatantly biased policing tactics that target African Americans, particularly those who are perceived as being “out of touch with the cultural mainstream.” Not surprisingly, there is a direct link between exposure to the “crime script” and fear and prejudice against African Americans.

Kirsten Savali of the Root explains, “If institutionalized racism is the poison, then mainstream media is the needle that pushes it deeply into the veins of society, rendering the humanity of black people invisible.”

This is a potential explanation for the increased perception of racism on the rise as is explained in the CNN poll.

Although there is a plethora of information explaining the racism in the media, there is some evidence of the beneficial effects.

https://www.ic.nanzan-u.ac.jp/AMERICA/english/documents/24HONDA.pdf

Kahuiza of the University of Rikkyo in 2009 cites the example of the Civil Rights Movement. The media slanted coverage against this movement, but citizens were alerted to the reality of racism after watching the racist media ironically enough.

In terms of the situation in the University of Missouri, we need to be careful in what we hear and the opinions we form after listening to the media. I believe that opinions can only be formed from the FACTS that are presented in the media, because often the debates that happen are rigged, and the coverage is specifically slanted against racial activists and presented in a racist lens.

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Mr. Kaplan

11/29/2015 05:09:01 pm

Here are a few other ideas to think about:

With Diversity Comes Intensity in Amherst Free Speech Debate - A sit-in at Amherst College was met with some criticism that students were trying to stifle free speech by Anemona Hartocollis November 28, 2015
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/29/us/with-diversity-comes-intensity-in-amherst-free-speech-debate.html

Free Speech or Safe Spaces? What college campuses need is dialogue and empathy. by Dahlia Lithwick November 25, 2015 Jurisprudence: The law, lawyers, and the court. http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudence/2015/11/campus_protests_need_dialogue_not_safe_spaces_and_offense.html

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Evan Zeng

11/29/2015 09:53:22 pm

In response to Ayush’s first question: some reporters are trying to take note how the protestors are infringing upon the First Amendment and freedom of the press in what is a public area. As for the second question, I don’t know either. The problem of racism at the University of Missouri must not only be identified, but it also must be addressed. Why did the former president not do anything until it was essentially too late, apologizing only after several weeks for his inactivity on racism?

Also, what will the protestors do if their demands are realized?

I have done very little research on this area, but I do understand that the reporters do have a legal right to report on what is going on in the Safe Space. The first Amendment was initially created to discourage tyrannical rule in the new United States. Of course, the meaning of “freedom of press” now has a new meaning, which entitles the reporters to know what is going on.

Also, the right of students to free speech is limited by the power their schools. In Hazelwood School District v. Kuhlmeier, the Supreme Court (essentially) ruled that school forums and newspapers had limited free expression. Now, students intrude upon public space. Legally, the school has a right to remove the students from the area, especially they support a still touchy subject in the U.S.: racism.

The protesters themselves have what I would consider a great cause: an attempt to solve the ongoing racism at the University of Missouri. It has been many years since the Civil Rights Movement, yet racism doesn’t seem to be gradually going away; it may actually be on the rise, suggested by the CNN article. I would like to mention that increasing belief that racism is a problem does not mean that racism is actually spreading; it could just be that people who had never given their opinion on racism before are now coming out. Racism could just be overblown. HOWEVER, racism is still a huge problem that must be addressed immediately.

Yes, the protestors want to be heard, and occupying a public space is surely a very strong way of being heard. Yet the students legally intrude on freedom of the press and on public space. Their way forces authorities to do something about racism, but if the authorities don’t have a quick solution, they should have to move the protestors.

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Bhavik Nagda

11/30/2015 04:31:51 pm

Perhaps journalism isn't itself at fault, but rather the feeling of being broadcast through journalism changes the conversation; the students running the Safe Space campaign may have feared that allowing journalism would lead to weaker conversations. Of course, some journalism explicitly misrepresents society and paves the way for Safe Spaces like these, but student are themselves scared, scared that their opinions will be voiced and eventually, ridiculed.

Something that particularly stood out during my research was the imbalance in the races of reporters themselves. In fact, according to Sally Lehrman from the Society of Professional Journalists, “Television newsrooms are nearly 80 percent white while radio newsrooms are 92 percent white.” While the statistics don’t directly refer to written journalism, it seems as though the media itself is dominated by white reporters. Perhaps this imbalance contributes to the bias that led the students at the University of Missouri to take their controversial stand.

First, responding to Ayush’s first question, the students seem to believe that they have the power to kick out the reporters from their own “sacred” base. Although it is a public university open to everyone, it is the students who pay to go there and use the facilities. So, in a way, they could hold the privilege to make the reporters “back off” since they are doing some important business in the open ground of the university and want no outsiders to interfere. The students have the right to use the place first and open it only to Missouri students (not outsiders). So, perhaps, because the students thought it was their own (students’ and school’s) private business, the students might have told the reporters to “back off”.

I have never thought Racism concerning blacks was so severe. I, indeed, saw a glimpse of Racism in the Ferguson’s case. However, I didn’t think that the Ferguson’s case went all dead wrong. Then, what could it be so unfair about Black pain (which stories should we show)? How do you suppose we improve on this fair show of black pain? Also, what are the reasons that Missouri students possess such thoughts?

To add onto the clarifying questions, would the students have known that the reporter was a Missouri student? If they have known, why did they try to shoo away the reporter?

I did some research to figure these questions out.
http://www.refinery29.com/2015/11/98075/harvard-law-university-illinois-racism-white-power-facebook
I found out that racism is clearly shown even in the school ground of well-known and highly standardized universities. For example, on November 2015, Lilli Petersen from an online news called Refinery29 reported that the photo portraits of all African American professors in Harvard Law School were defaced with black electrical tape.
In addition, a white-power Facebook page appeared to backlash against the Black Lives Matter movement in University of Illinois. According to The Washington Post, although the page was quickly taken down, it soon reappeared.

http://www.usnews.com/news/us/articles/2015/11/12/missouri-protests-embolden-student-leaders-on-other-campuses
Moreover, after the Missouri students incident, the students from other universities such as Boston College also put up a demonstration. A senior in University of California Los Angeles, also mentioned that she is the only black person in her biology class and is picked last routinely for group assignments.

I think these news are a good indicator that tells us how serious racial problems are even today in these prominent colleges. At first, I wasn’t being so serious about the racial problems because it didn’t seem so relevant in our lives. However, after researching this topic (racism), I can see that the students in many different states are taking notice and coming together to change their communities. To me, the incident happened in University of Missouri was an acceptable demonstration where they took a big step into the race free culture that they wanted.

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Alexa Rhynd

11/30/2015 09:25:07 pm

I ask this question because like one of the people in the article, I find out most news by seeing shared articles on Facebook. As Bruemmer says, "I am troubled by the bias I see in the media, that seems to spend all its time talking about the bad policemen and the bad white people and ignoring the crime and the disastrous conditions that are occurring in large segments of the black youth.” I do agree that there is a bias in the media I see, especially as my research showed me (and Bhavik found as well) that “Television newsrooms are nearly 80 percent white while radio newsrooms are 92 percent white.” When reading about these police using “excessive force, particularly against African Americans”, I have to keep in mind that it is most likely a white reporter writing this article, who easily could have a biased opinion or angle. Wether these shootings are hate crimes or were responsible firing, the ability to share videos and articles through media makes it so easy to make things viral nowadays. As Adam says, “the level of racism is more or less the same. Wh What's changed," he says, "is that more people are aware of it." So, really there is no way to have a fair and unbiased outlook on wether racism is on the rise when media is so corrupt, but personally I do think there are leaps and bounds in the realm of racial equality.

I read the article “Is Racism on the Rise?” and immediately thought of a clarifying question: Is racism on the rise or is there more light being shed on it now more than ever, causing media to portray racism as a greater issue than it is?

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Mark Olchanyi

11/30/2015 11:11:24 pm

My question ties into Evan's question above: if this kind of "safe space" were to exist (with parameters large enough to be counted as a significant part of our society), who would run and maintain it? How would these rules of complete tolerance be enforced, and how would the whole idea of this "safe space" not turn into a perfect representation of idealized irony.

This whole deal with this free speech debate reminded me of the past few episodes of South Park (one of the episodes was actually called "safe space"). The creators of South Park mock the very idea of this so-called "safe-space" by creating these "politically correct " (PC) characters (PC principal for example, if any of you guys have watched the last few episodes, you would know what I'm talking about) that end up creating an environment free of free speech that does not tolerate any non-tolerance. Every PC character is so accepting that anything that is not 100% socially tolerant is not acceptable. These South Park episodes bring out the absurdity associated with this idealized image of safe spaces, and tolerance all around.

Even though I am all for bringing some humor into this debate, but the racism and intolerance (partly from the people, and partly from the press) is a serious issue that was not addressed properly by the president of the University of Missouri and in my opinion, it was still worth the protest.

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Mark Olchanyi

11/30/2015 11:18:35 pm

Here is a link to the South Park "article", which elaborates a little on what I was talking about...

Clarifying Questions:
The protestors claim that they have first amendment rights to protest and should not be photographed. While there is the right to protest, I do not believe that there is a right to privacy. Does this right exist? How can we enforce the right to privacy as a nation? Should it be included in the Constitution?
If they do not want the media to be broadcasting them, then why are they publicly protesting? Isn't the goal for media to pick up the protest so that it gets more traction?
Why can there not be productive media?
http://www.onthemedia.org/story/distrusting-media-missouri/

I noticed in my research that many other institutions of higher education also have heavy racial protests but are not getting as much traction. For example, many people know about the protesting at University of Missouri, but fewer know about what is going on in California's Occidental College. The students at the latter school are protesting racial bias against minority groups. They have a very strong case, yet are not receiving as much media attention as University of Missouri. I think part of this is due to the fact that University of Missouri protestors called for no media attention. This creates controversy, and controversy will prevail over substance almost always in modern media.
http://lasentinel.net/occidental-college-students-protest-to-end-racial-inequality-on-campus.html

I also am very intrigued by the idea that the media does not do a good enough job showing black pain, but yet needs to show black joy more. It seems as though the media cannot be right. I think that it is hard to show a whole race's emotions in one event, as a race is made up of many individuals, rather than a homogenous group.
Even though I think this, I feel judged saying this because I am white. I understand that as a white male, I am incredibly privileged; but this privilege does come at a little bit of a price, even if the pros far outweigh the cons. I have to be incredibly careful of everything I say because anything I say can be construed as a thought of racial aggression. I am told that I will never understand the black struggle, even when I do not see race as being an issue that should concern us – I'm aware that it does concern us, but it shouldn't. Even looking back on what I'm saying right now, it is looking a little bit like I am saying "I have privilege and yet I require more." What I have learned through my research is that even when we think we are approaching an end, there is a long road to climb.

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Eli Braginsky

12/1/2015 09:09:33 am

What I don’t understand about the idea of a “safe space” is what exactly gives the students the right to keep the media out? Obviously college students are not a government entity, but isn’t this violating reporters’ constitutional right to free press? I don’t know exactly how the law works in this case, but since the University of Missouri is a public institution, isn’t the government responsible for the breach of this constitutional right if they do not intervene? On the other hand, since the nature of the students’ protest involves keeping the media out, would intervening be violating the students’ right to free protest?
Even though the media may not report on racial issues fairly, I think the students misunderstand that without the media and various news outlets, most Americans would not even know about racial issues that are prevalent in our society today. For example, the death of Trayvon Martin received a huge amount of media attention, which brought it into the public’s eye. More recently, the media exposure of police brutality and prejudice toward African Americans has made America more aware of this issue. Even the University of Missouri protests are being discussed because of the media’s reporting on them. Like Robby said, why are they publicly protesting if they don’t want media exposure of their protests?

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Isaiah Kriegman

12/1/2015 11:37:51 pm

I remember reading in some New York Times article about how there was a major Safe Space movement on some campus, and every student was given a pamphlet to put in their window saying "This is a safe space". Then some kid put up a sign in their window saying "WARNING: THIS IS A DANGEROUS PLACE". I just thought that was funny :)

This may seem tangential to the discussion, but there's a debate going on between my older brother and my father. My father argues that Republicans are, as a whole, more out of touch with reality than any other group because of a list of stances that show they are out of touch (stuff like being anti gay marriage, a blatantly hateful stance at this point in time). My older brother argues that this is a silly way to measure how out of touch with reality some group is, because they can make the same list for whatever group you fall in. He argues that it's simply a means to validate your own bias. I think this point is particularly relevant in our community in Newton, where Republican bashing is so prevalent and normal.

One of the main examples my brother gives of liberal delusion is this whole safe space craze, saying that it goes against basic principles of freedom of speech and represents that ability of strongly liberal minded people to completely disconnect themselves with reality to satisfy their points of view.

South Park did a nice song on this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXQkXXBqj_U

At the beginning of the year in my comp gov class, we go to read a little bit about philosophy and the foundations of liberalism and different liberties. I can't exactly put it into words, but the freedom of speech is *important*. It's one of the only things that I feel I can whole heatedly support a a value for humanity. Lessons on history seem to have taught me that the lack of freedom of speech has brought great destruction to the world. The world seems to be a better place with the freedom of speech.

This seems more tangential and probably is more tangential but... I'm worried about the freedom of speech for a few reasons. What we're discussing is one of the reasons, how the safe space movement aims to make offensive speech illegal. But there are other changes happening around us. David Cameron in the UK is attempting to outlaw encrypted messaging, invading people's privacy. Different corporations in the US, most notably Comcast, has an iron grip over our internet, and are using that grip to actually control what information can and can't be easily shared.

What I mean by this is that there are changes happening around us which suggest to me that the freedom of speech is in more danger than people realize.

This isn't organized and doesn't really have a point, but It's just my best attempt o put my thoughts on the blog.

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Caraline

12/2/2015 10:35:35 pm

Like Alexa, I hear about most news on Facebook and the CNN app on my phone that sends me news updates, but I also wonder if there is more coverage on racism so the media makes it seem like a larger issue. Which relates to what Robby was saying about the University of Missouri calling for no media attention, and that stirred up attention because it is controversial. I think that the news/media jump to report controversial things and the University of Missouri is a great example of this. A few years ago someone put cotton balls outside of the building where the black student union met, and that is just one of the many things that has happened on campus yet there was not coverage on that. There are also many other things like this happening around the country at many different schools that hasn’t really been brought to many people’s attention. But now since the University of Missouri has sparked this conversation, many other schools like the Claremont McKenna Colleges and Yale are also starting to speak out.
As for safe spaces and the students at University of Missouri not wanting any media, I think that they are entitled to say what ever they would like to say, but just as they have the right to free speech and the right to protest, others have freedom of the press. So while they can reap the benefits of their first amendments, others can too and it is something that both parties should consider. But what I think is important to keep in mind when looking at the event at the University of Missouri is that we need to look at the whole picture. Often times you can read something from one viewpoint and form an opinion, but we need to consider the other viewpoints.

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Noa Leiter

12/2/2015 10:48:31 pm

Immediately after reading about the treatment of the media at the University of Missouri I asked the question, “why would protesters would not want publicity?” Preliminary research answered my question: safe spaces are intended to ben escape from racism, but also from the ridicule that media often brings.

As Bhavik pointed out, the students distrust of the media and intention to protect safe spaces originated because the students “themselves are scared, scared that their opinions will be voided and eventually ridiculed”. However, while that makes sense, what type of world would we live in if no one questioned each other's opinions and views?

After reading Dahlia Lithwick’s article “Free Speech or Safe Space, I was extremely shocked in regards to how universities were not just preventing any media coverage whatsoever, but instead filtered how their protests were covered by the media. Lithwick explains how days after the University of Missouri incident with the reporter, “ Smith College blocked media from a student sit-in unless reporters agreed to explicitly state support for the movement in their coverage of the event.” This type of filtration creates extreme bias and defeats the purpose of journalism.

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Alex Kiristy

12/2/2015 10:54:51 pm

Some questions I have:
1) Many African Americans state that racism is now more apparent than ever but do they truly believe in this?
2) Are many African-Americans getting caught up in the pressure to support certain movements such as the Blacklivesmatter movement, and if so, is that a problem?
3) In terms of the actual dilemma in Missouri, if these protests are completely legal and peaceful, why is it a problem for journalists and reporters to take in the scene and provide information to the rest of America who is wondering what is going on?

As it mentioned in the first article about the University of Missouri protests, Steven Thrasher highlights that reporters and journalists need to do a better job of communicating the pain of black people. He argues that this is why many black people feel unsafe. However, what do we do as a society after we have fully communicated the pain, inconveniences, and hassles that many black people have had to go through in their lives. I understand that we may have large bridges to cross in the future, but as far as I know, I think American society has gotten pretty close to equalizing the playing field between all different types of races and ethnicities, as it pertains to the law. This is where it gets tricky. Is it correct for us to start giving these minorities advantages. We see them everyday, most prominent to us, being the college application process. Our society has decided that being black is enough of a disadvantage that we should provide a "handicap" in order to try to integrate more black people into our colleges. This is is partially known as Affirmative Action but can also just be called the selection process for many schools. So here's my question; Are we making strides as a society by giving certain minorities advantages throughout their life? Personally, I don't think so. I don't think we have the right mentality as a nation. Furthermore, this is where a lot of racism stems from. Some of it comes from long lasting history but some comes from the clashing of power between whites and blacks and that whites are mad that their power is constantly being stripped from them.
Instead of addressing the problem after it has happened, I think we need to prevent the problem from even happening. I have researched school statistics and many reports claim that the teacher to student ratio is actually better at inner city schools in Boston than many suburban schools. Other statistics show that the teachers and facilities are not the problem for why students of color may be doing poorly. Then why are many of them doing poorly? They struggle because they do not have the support system, (i.e. tutors, family help, guidance counselors, college counselors, coaches...etc) that many white kids have. And how do you get this support system? Through money of course. In terms of education, which has been prescribed as the key to success in America, this is the cycle that constantly occurs. It is this cycle that constantly frustrates students of color and causes them to claim that racism still exists. I agree with them. However, racism is much less on an individual scale as it is on a societal scale. The game is rigged against citizens of color, and this is a game that is very hard to fix.

While it is clear that racism stems from many issues, one thing is for sure; the role of education will always be at the heart of racism and will always be in favor of those with the support system that allows them to succeed.

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Jonny Elias

12/3/2015 08:20:18 am

I actually was following this story as it developed from the start. Interestingly, and somewhat hypocritically, the protesting Missouri students were strongly calling for media attention when they were trying to get there cause out there. This is reasonable, considering this is the modern way to call attention to your cause. However, where the hypocritical part comes in, is where once the students had the national attention, they created a media-free space.

This is where my problem with their protest starts. The student reporter who was attempting to fulfil his journalistic duty by simply reporting on what he saw was almost banned from the area just for trying to portray to public what was happening.

A video surfaced of a professor attempting to forcibly remove a student trying to take pictures for the school newspaper, a newspaper that is part of one of the best journalism schools in the country, mind you. Ironically enough, the professor that attempted to have the student removed was a professor of mass media at the university, Dr. Melissa Click. She, of all people, should have understood the importance the justness of portraying both sides of the argument to the public.

However, the dagger in all this actually comes from Click’s twitter bio, where her background photo legitimately reads “Media is love. Everyone welcome.” Not sure there I could even dream up a better example of irony.

This all isn’t to say I disagree witht eh Missouri protesters; racism is most definitely a worthy cause to stand up for if you feel you have been a victim of it, and it takes huge guts to stand up to the national media as well, which of course deserves respect. However, the means by which the protesters went about publicizing their cause and hypocrisy they demonstrated in their attempt to then fight off media attention can not be overlooked in my opinion.

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Richard Dai

12/4/2015 09:37:09 pm

From the research that I have done on this subject, I have learned that earlier this year that the Missouri Governor had signed into the Campus Free Expression Act. The Campus Free Expression Act prohibits colleges and universities from restricting student speech in designated areas on campus called "free-speech zones". Therefore, students are able to express their beliefs on all areas of the campus. However, the area (Carnahan Quadrangle) where the protests take place are still public property, which allow for both freedom of speech and freedom of press. This has lead to the public outcry of journalists. Protesters have responded by saying that the media is altering the view of the protests in an unfavorable manner. The matter of the fact is that both parties did have a right to be on campus to do what they were doing as long as they did not disrupt any of the institution's activities. From Senate Bill 93, "Any person who wishes to engage in noncommercial expressive activity on campus shall be permitted to do so freely, as long as the person's conduct is not unlawful and does not materially and substantially disrupt the functioning of the institution subject to the requirements of subsection 2 of this section. ".

http://www.senate.mo.gov/15info/pdf-bill/perf/SB93.pdf

This article on the Washington Post has many different opinions from college officials on the line between free speech and racism. The opinions range from racism should be punished at universities, to racism cannot be punished at universities, to people are being too sensitive.

I think Noa raises a nice question when she asks, "...what type of world would we live in if no one questioned each other's opinions and views?" I'm going to try to answer that in my response.

I think that even if the media has a bias in its reporting, it is important to remember that without media and news coverage, many of us locally would be unaware of racial issues in today's society. Without the media's extensive coverage on the death of Michael Brown, it is highly unlikely (if not impossible) that the Black Lives Matter movement would have formed and many Americans would not be as familiar with racial issues in America today. Here in New England, we might be left thinking racism was a thing of the past (which is an exaggeration, but hopefully you get the point).

So if we don't question each other's opinions and views, we end up with a very backwards society in which people don't know how to interact. I think that's a very important social skill: being able to respect others' opinions, even if they aren't compatible with yours, because however hard we try, there will be times when you disagree with others and knowing how to respond in these situations is very important.

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Daniela Cherny

12/7/2015 11:07:21 am

Like Caraline and Alexa, a lot of the news I read is from Facebook or other forms of social media, but I find that most of the news sources on these social media sites are as simple as, "Uber can now deliver puppies for fifteen minutes". Issues revolving around racism have definitely been more popular in the news recently, but I wonder if that's due to tragic incidents, like Ferguson. Cases like these, where a white police officer attacks an innocent, black victim, go viral on the internet instantly. Hashtags appear on twitter, and facebook links to news sources about these issues are shared onto everyone's feeds. Social media is a powerful tool for spreading awareness, but it can also be controversial. In "Is Racism on the Rise?", the author of the article raises a question about whether there is "Too much hype?", where Breumer blames bad leadership for the reason why there are tensions amongst minorities, and that blacks are more angry at white's than vice versa. It's difficult to pinpoint the source of these ongoing issues, and that's where social media comes into play. The internet contains a variety of sources, many of which are written by people with their own personal opinions. While an article can state the facts of, say, a hate-crime, it's hard for the author to not subtly write about their personal feelings, whether it's in the tone of the writing or clearly stated.

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Jake Boll

12/7/2015 11:04:05 pm

My Questions: I still do not understand why the protesters originally wanted more media attention and then decided that the safe space they created was not going to allow media. So, what shifted? Also, in response to the CNN article that said racism is on the rise, I am curious if the perceived rise is a result of more focus on the issue of racism, due to recent police shootings, or if the perceived rise is an direct result of more people acting in racist ways.

The first article, with the interview with Steven Thrasher helped me understand my first question of why the protest decided part of the way through the protest that it wanted to create a media free zone. To the best of my understanding, the protestesters originally wanted media attention to raise awareness for their specific outcries. Then, the protest became more professional and run more thoughtfully, and the leaders of the protest were distrustful of the media and because of this they did not want the media to be able to decide what to report about the protest. Although the attention to the protest would be beneficial to the possibility of the protest being successful, the protesters were worried that the media would find one member of the protest who was not representative of the majority of the protesters, or one off-hand remark, and use that one person or stray remark to depict the protest in a negative light.

While at first it seems hypocritical that the protesters switched their opinions from wanting media to discouraging media, it is not reasonable to have a distrust of the media or fear that that media would misrepresent a situation. One recent example of the media acting in a biased way, while setting the national opinion was how the media was incredibly hesitant to describe the recent shooting in Colorado at a Planned Parenthood clinic as terrorism, but would undoubtedly have no problem describing a similar situation as terrorism if the shooter had been muslim, instead of a white christian.

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Ruja Kambli

12/8/2015 10:49:10 am

Clarifying questions:
1) Why won’t the students give the media the opportunity to portray this issue of race in a positive light?
2) The whole point of protesting and taking a stand on campus is to raise awareness and make real social changes, so why wouldn’t they want as much publicity as they can get?
3) Are the students legally allowed to force the media to stay off the campus?

I haven’t done any considerable amounts of research on what’s going on in Missouri, but I think the idea of having a “safe space” doesn’t really make sense. As Mark and Evan already expressed, running and maintaining this sort of controlled area would pose challenges in and of itself. For example, ensuring that an entire group of people are protected from a certain type of expression (even though it is negative) basically goes again the concept of free speech that the country was founded on. Expressing contradicting opinions plants the seed for important discussions to talk to people who don’t see things your way, and limiting the scope of who you talk to or interact with in these “safe spaces” is inherently against the point of saying what you think and explaining to other people what you believe in. In these so called safe spaces one would only end up talking to people who agree with you, which doesn’t make for any sort of productive discourse. Also, I agree when Bhavik challenged that journalism itself may not actually the problem. Although some types of journalism misconstrue evidence or facts and misrepresent people’s opinions- it just creates a sense of fear that if your opinion is out in the real world, you will be made fun of or ridiculed. This fear is exactly the sort of culture students should be trying to abolish when they speak their minds.